Events

Release of the 2015 National Financial Capability Study | July 12, 2016

On July 12, 2016, GFLEC and the FINRA Investor Education Foundation co-hosted the release of the data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS). The NFCS is an ongoing, multi-year project by FINRA Foundation aimed at monitoring and better understanding financial capability in America. The first wave of NFCS data was collected in 2009 and the second wave in 2012.

The release of the data took place at the George Washington University (GW) with remarks by the following speakers:

• Rick Ketchum, Chairman and CEO of FINRA and Chairman of the FINRA Foundation

• More than one in five Americans (21 percent) have unpaid medical debt, and women are more likely than men to put off medical services due to cost, such as seeing a doctor, buying needed prescriptions or undergoing a medical procedure;

• Nearly half of respondents with a high school education or less could not come up with $2,000 in 30 days in the event of an emergency (45 percent) compared to only 18 percent for respondents with a college degree;

• Twenty-nine percent of 18 to 34-year olds with a mortgage have been late with a mortgage payment, compared with 7 percent for the 55+ age group;

• Hispanics and African-Americans are much more likely to use high-cost forms of borrowing like pawn shops and payday loans compared to whites—39 percent for African-Americans, 34 percent for Hispanics and 21 percent for whites; and

• Only 37 percent of respondents are considered to have high financial literacy, meaning they could answer four or more questions on a five-question financial literacy quiz—down from 39 percent in 2012 and 42 percent in 2009.

ANALYZING THE NFCS DATA

GFLEC has been working on the NFCS data since the first wave was released in 2009. The data is uniquely useful because it is rich in information and has a large sample size. The data helps to shed light on many different aspects of Americans’ financial capability. Below you can find links to some of GFLEC’s work on the previous NFCS waves.